COMMON CARRIERS

What Are Common Carriers?

A common carrier serves both commercial and residential shippers and generally operates as a motor carrier or trucking company or freight company. Common carriers have the ability to transport LTL, full or partial truckloads and intermodal freight. Each common carrier has regular lanes and set rates and specializes in a certain type of equipment.

DO ALL COMMON CARRIERS PROVIDE THE SAME SERVICES AND SERVE THE SAME LOCATIONS?

Common carriers are separate businesses, each with its own equipment, service offerings and rates. Common carriers often specialize in just a few services. This means they’re great at what they do. It also means not every carrier is going to offer the services you need for every shipment you have.

For example, let’s say you build specialty car engines. You want to ship an engine you just finished from your shop in Texas to a customer’s home in Florida. You've shipped your engines from Texas to Florida before, but always to another shop. You find out the carrier you usually work with doesn’t offer residential delivery services. Your customer is expecting their engine by the end of the week and you don’t know what to do.

HOW DO YOU FIND THE RIGHT CARRIER FOR THE HAUL?

You could waste time searching for a trucking company that offers the exact services you need, such as expedited and residential shipping. Or, you can save time by going directly to a 3rd Party Logistics company (3PL) like FreightCenter for a quote. You'll receive discounted freight shipping rates from multiple common carriers at once. Why discounted? The answer is simple. The high volume of shipping we do (thanks to our large customer base) gets us discounts you can’t get anywhere else. The best part? You get to choose the carrier with the transit time and price that works best for you.

FreightCenter partners with a large network of carriers nationwide. Some even specialize in cross-border or international shipping. As a FreightCenter customer, you get access to all the services our carriers offer.There are thousands of common carriers out there for you to choose from.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM FREIGHTCENTER

With FreightCenter, you get access to instant freight shipping rates from a large network of trucking companies. So don’t spend hours searching for the right combination service and price. You’ll also have access to our freight experts. They can help you figure out what services you need for each shipment and which carriers are best suited for those services.